Why use Deno instead of Node in Edge Functions?

[naclcaleb]

So, I just started working with Edge functions, and I have some concerns as to the decision to have them run on Deno rather than Node. While I think Deno has its benefits and I'd love to see it more widely in use, for a product aimed at making the development process easier for devs I'm not really sure if it's the right choice...for example, while many NPM packages can work with Deno easily enough using something like esm.sh, there are also many that just don't, and require more work to set up that would have been avoided having just used Node.

Also, I would imagine that a lot of Supabase users are frontend devs who are familiar with JS frameworks like React, Vue, or Svelte, so most of the users are probably already proficient in using Node. There's also a greater amount of documentation and community support online for Node than for Deno.

I have an open mind about it though, so I'd love to hear what the original thinking behind that decision was?

[Prettycharm]

I hope this question gets answered cos using Deno is quite uncomfortable esp when you will be paying for the service. As a frontend dev, it's trying to change the way I work. Node would have make supabase edge functions way easier to use. After all netlify functions uses node.

[laktek]

Deno is currently the only open-source JavaScript runtime optimized to run on the edge. This was a key factor in our decision to go with Deno. Check our intro blog post where we dive more into the details on the reasons to choose Deno.

Also, Deno is improving on its Node compatibility layer and NPM support. So we expect it wouldn't be too hard for developers familiar with Node to adopt Deno. Having said that, we are also keeping a close eye on other open-source efforts on JS runtimes and are ready to evolve.

[rondorkerin]

Please give us another option. It's so bad.

[thehaiwave]

It's ass bro ngl

[Pictor13]

What other runtime are being considered?

Is there any, apart for Deno, that is suitable for running on Edge?

I'm not a fan of Node, I see Deno advantages, but I also struggled a lot with the whole experience with Edge Functions because of Deno integrations (local dev docker container, unintuitive import maps, vscode linting, code sharing, npm dependencies). So I'm wondering whether other runtimes could smooth some edges (no pun intended 🙃).

[ccarstens]

feels so good to see that I'm not the only one struggling with this. The supabase dev experience is overall pretty decent, but the current time will be the last time I'm writing code for edge functions because of Deno.

There being constant issues with dependencies is slowing me down like crazy and makes me not use some SDKs all together. :/

[ikantthink]

I have the same sentiment, we have all been watching Deno for it's npm compatibility when we could have been writing functions. To me, Edge Functions are not valuable to the platform because they are on the edge, they are valuable because on most any project, inevitably, something will need to be on the server. Devs need server functions. Having them closer to the user is secondary and could be entirely optional. Reading the intro blog post, I get the feeling it was easier to sub it out the Deno platform.

Regardless, Supabase is a great platform and the compatibility is here.

A really common Firebase setup is to use a single cloud function to host an express app allowing for multiple endpoint routes.
From the Deno docs:

import express from "npm:express@^4.17";
const app = express();

app.get("/", (req, res) => {
  res.send("Hello World");
});

app.listen(3000);
console.log("listening on http://localhost:3000/");

[naclcaleb]

Edge Functions are not valuable to the platform because they are on the edge, they are valuable because on most any project, inevitably, something will need to be on the server. Devs need server functions. Having them closer to the user is secondary and could be entirely optional.

Yes, this!
Plus, reliability to me is far more important than being on the Edge - earlier this year Supabase kept having outages when running on GCP's edge network, where every single edge function in my app would stop working. I ended up switching to Netlify Edge functions.

[Pictor13]

And how was the experience of Deno edge functions in Netlify, compared to Supabase?
Only difference was the stability/reliability?

[naclcaleb]

I agree - Edge Functions almost fills that gap in Supabase's backend options, but I agree that a normal "cloud functions" setup would be extremely valuable while Deno is still in its growing phase. NPM compatibility is nice, but as it is right now it's felt a little tacky and unreliable; sometimes I just need my code to work.

[laktek]

@naclcaleb Do you have any specific examples of code that doesn't work with Deno?

[laktek]

@rondorkerin Have you tried using https://github.com/mhart/aws4fetch (should be possible to import via esm.sh/aws4fetch)?

[ahmadmoussadev]

recombee js sdk dosent work :(

[williamlmao]

@laktek the openai js sdk doesn't work for me. I have to use the unofficial deno wrapper to get openai working in edge functions.

[maumercado]

@laktek Fastify
fastify/fastify#2173

Which brings this issue back, NodeJS is not Deno, supporting NodeJS would make adoption of edge functions easier for me and my team as well, instead of making the developer "learn Deno"

My team heavily relies on fastify mainly because of the dev experience it provides, plus the benefits of speed etc.

[AndrewAskins]

I've been trying to convert an svg to a png (pretty simple, lots of node libraries out there to do it), and while I have found a couple of libraries that mostly work inside of the Supabase Deno environment, they have poor outputs. I've been struggling for days now with trying to get a couple of web assembly options to work (more documentation on how to do this would be great too) with no luck so far. I agree that a node option would have been much easier to get up to speed with, even if it means a cloud function that isn't on the edge.

[naclcaleb]

@laktek not recently...I one thing I remember is trying to use the openai NPM module back in December and that just completely failing. Trying it now though in the Deno deploy playground works.

I also remember trying to use the npm portscanner library back in August (I think?) for checking available ports on another server. That one still doesn't work in Deno playground:

import portscanner from 'https://esm.sh/portscanner';

portscanner.findAPortInUse(3000, 3010, '127.0.0.1', function(error, port) {
  console.log('PORT IN USE AT: ' + port)
})

Throws:

TypeError: Deno.unrefTimer is not a function

I think my biggest problem with Deno is, I don't like to think that with so many tiny things like this out there, I'm never going to know whether a package I need to use will work or not. I just have to try it out and see if it produces an error or not. It feels uneasy.

[imagitama]

Can there please be a guide for creating a new Edge Function if you come from a Node.js (aka Firebase/Netlify) background? I'm following your Discord bot guide and I've never used Deno before and it's a pain.

[deepak-coding-art]

The npm: packages are not working in the edge functions can anybody help ?

error: Following npm specifiers were requested: "tiktoken-node"; but --no-npm is specified.

[Pictor13]

Supabase uses deno --no-npm, at least on the dev machine; hence is not possible to use the npm:package specifier.

You need to import them the "deno way", by fetching them from https://unpkg.com/ or https://esm.sh/

[johnsutor]

I wish this was explicitly mentioned in the documentation.

[Pictor13]

I didn't touch Supabase for several months but, iirc, now the flag has been removed and the NPM support is enabled.
I just wanted to leave an update to not confuse new people arriving here.

[laktek]

@deepak-coding-art We have currently disabled npm modules in Edge Functions since Deno Deploy, which we use as our current host doesn't support them.

Have you tried importing it from eshm.sh/tiktoken-node?

[deepak-coding-art]

Yes i tied but it has some wasm issue on esm.sh it gives some character error:

error: invalid utf-8 sequence of 1 bytes from index 9
    at https://esm.sh/v111/@dqbd/[email protected]/deno/tiktoken.js:2:419

[laktek]

You can import tiktoken via esm.sh - Check how we do it in Supabase doc search

supabase/supabase/functions/common/tokenizer.ts

Line 1 in ee280f1

import { init, Tiktoken } from 'https://esm.sh/@dqbd/[email protected]/lite/init'

import { init, Tiktoken } from 'https://esm.sh/@dqbd/[email protected]/lite/init'

[adamcohenhillel]

@laktek running this^ locally, I'm getting:

DEBUG redirect policy disallowed redirection to 'https://esm.sh/@dqbd/[email protected]/lite/tiktoken_bg.wasm'

[kikoncuo]

@laktek
I'd be ok with Deno if it had NPM support, but as it stands in Supabase, you can't use it for any half-complicated development that relies on popular libraries.
Deno's package ecosystem is tiny and heavily outdated, complicating development a lot, and forcing us to run separate standalone services for things that are edge functions in any other platform.

[imagitama]

But you can use a NPM package CDN like https://www.unpkg.com for all of your packages

[Seanmclem]

Some would rather be annoyed that they can’t do something, than to take a moment to realize that they can

[haouarihk]

i'm waiting for the bunjs edge function proposal in the near future

[mellowcello77]

I spent the whole day trying to get data from supabase into an excel document, it's still not working. In node, 5 minutes. We need documentation on using npm or how Deno is going to provide the same service.

[mellowcello77]

I tried 3 different packages and ended up using https://www.npmjs.com/package/xlsx, they have a 'Deno' section on how to import it. But man, what a mission, took me a full day. I hope it wont be the case with everything Deno related but let's see.

[ArmanAryanpour]

I tried 3 different packages and ended up using https://www.npmjs.com/package/xlsx, they have a 'Deno' section on how to import it. But man, what a mission, took me a full day. I hope it wont be the case with everything Deno related but let's see.

Its not the greatest experience. You are better off manually inejcting secrets, and use vercel functions or aws, gcp, azure in whatever language you'd like with the client libraries.

[naclcaleb]

Agreed - it seems like I always run into something that gets finicky whenever I use Deno in a project.

[ArmanAryanpour]

Here is my suggestion for this issue: #14532

Replace Deno Runtime for Edge Functions with Dapr #14532

[CareTiger]

I agree with the OP's sentiment. finding the right package on deno/esm hasnt been a great experience and a time suck. @laktek It would be nice if Supabase can keep like a running list of commonly used packages and where to get them from. like in your example -

import { init, Tiktoken } from 'https://esm.sh/@dqbd/[email protected]/lite/init'

[laktek]

We are working with Deno team to get npm: specifiers to work in Edge Functions. That should solve lot of the frustrations around finding/importing the right package. We'll update this thread when we have something to share.

[rlee1990]

I hope this can happen soon. This is a real drawback for some of the packages we can't use directly and have to use their rest api which isn't as easy.

[Pictor13]

By curiosity, where can one read more details about why Edge Functions have problems with npm-specifiers?

[bradydowling]

Thanks for your work on this! Right now OpenAI doesn't support imports via esm.sh so this is blocking for the latest version (4.0.0-beta4)

[laktek]

It should now be possible to import OpenAI via npm specifiers in your Edge Functions https://supabase.com/blog/edge-functions-node-npm

[otang]

I agree. The supabase experience has been stellar but having to switch to Deno has been a huge pain for me. I've been building our MVP for 2.5 months and this is the first time I'm questioning my decision to use Supabase. The DX is much worse trying to use both node and deno in the same project,.

[vickkhera]

I'm just not using supabase functions at all. My app is in Next.js and I'm just setting up API routes there to do whatever work I need.

[laktek]

Hey everyone, I want to share we now support npm modules natively, along with Node compatibility in Edge Functions. Read the announcement blog post for more details.

Also, the guides have been updated to show how to add npm modules via import maps and add type details for npm modules. https://supabase.com/docs/guides/functions/import-maps

If you have any specific questions about using a npm module or a Node built-in API, feel free to create a separate discussion or open a support request. I'm closing this discussion for new comments.

[naclcaleb]

Very curious to hear if this solves peoples' problems! I unfortunately migrated away from Supabase's Edge Functions a long time ago so I don't have anything to test it with.

[evelant]

Yeah this announcement came just after I finished migrating to a simple Bun server on fly.io (which has been significantly faster and error free). Maybe I'll give Supabase functions another try after some time. I'm guessing there are still lots of headaches due to Deno (vscode_deno requires hacks to work in a monorepo and is generally slow/buggy, some deps don't run on Deno due to inconsistencies even with node/npm integration, etc).

[ryanvanderpol]

Not sure if this is the best place to do this, but we've also given up on using Supabase Edge Functions because of the poor developer experience.

My team has evaluated using Edge Functions for a variety of projects but coming from a Node/Lambda background we found the Deno DX to be way too painful. Half the things we try to do seem to not be supported, and the rest of the time it feels like we're just wandering around blind in the dark. Poor documentation, poor developer tools, inconsistent support for common Node packages, poor debugging and feedback, etc. We'll be sticking with Lambdas for now.

We really enjoy Supabase, but Edge Functions are one thing that we have found to be really, really disappointing.

[maumercado]

Deno is not NodeJS and it's dissapointing that in order to use edge functions not only my team has to battle with Deno but also have to change their workflow and their IDE settings in order to accomodate a tool they will hardly ever use Deno, which btw the internal APIs are not compatible with those of NodeJS which we use everywhere, everyday.

When Edge Functions actually provide a NodeJS runtime you will be adopting the rest of the developers that work with NodeJS instead of forcing them to learn Deno or excluding them entirely.

Going to leave this again fastify/fastify#2173 because I believe its important to understand that Deno is not NodeJS and that a layer of support for node is not the same as a native runtime for it.

[rlee1990]

@maumercado Clearly your here to just complain vs doing research. Deno now supports using native node and npm packages and supabase has also added that support. The link you referenced is old.

[maumercado]

@rlee1990 yes Im here to complain and provide my feedback because I did the research, and have been trying to run fastify in an edge function. The link in question might be old but its still relevant.
I think supabase overall is great, but the edge functions for me just lack a Node native runtime rather than Deno's layer of support.

Im glad your project is going well and you had no issues with supabase but I did, and I would hope this comment serves a purpose rather than a long discussion of "it works for me your just complaining" kinda thing.

[rlee1990]

@maumercado Have you tried to import it with npm: and then the package with the version? It was for me for it I did a test function

[maumercado]

@rlee1990 Yap that's what Im doing
import { fastify } from 'npm:fastify@4';

also setting it in the import_maps.json and following the express example they put in place, and trying a few things, since also express !== fastify

Thanks for the suggestions

[matart15]

@rlee1990

Clearly your here to just complain vs doing research.

First of all thank you for developing and managing supabase for us. I assume you are part of supabase team. I know managing big open source library gets a lot of complaints. But if you recieve same complaint too many times, people asks same thing over and over again that means something is wrong in current library or documentation.

on the otherhand we pay for supabase cloud, so we should say our concerns and recieve answers that is reasonable.

As people mentioned above, Even it is possible in theory, in real life Deno DX sucks. With node I just npm install [some library] and follow readme. 99% of the time my code works.
But deno it does not go that way. It is followed by hours of googling, trying, pulling hairs.

I assume most of supabase users are small or mid level companies who want to develop faster. That is the only reason we chose supabase. In my opinion big teams who needs to Run a code on edge or distributed are not using supabase ( since i don't have data I am just assuming )

Again running a code on edge is SECONDARY PROBLEM for most of supabase developers.

Let me ask supabase team 2 questions

• Is it really not possible to support deno and node ( or just node if managing 2 runtime is hard )?
• If no what is the reason. ( except the need for run code on edge )

[alita-moore]

Please add support for monorepo shared packages. Sharing code between projects is basically impossible

[flogy]

Is there any workaround to get this working? Trying to use a TypeScript function shared between supabase edge functions and a node project. Supabase throws a Module not found error even though the code is imported correctly by using an import map entry with a relative path to the package containing the shared code.

[alita-moore]

I have a folder above the several projects that contains just typescript files that I import directly into deno. i.e. some crazy import like import {...} from "../../../../deno-shared/something.ts"

where the supabase root dir woudl be something closer to "../../.."

if that makes sense. It's not exactly clean or tenable but it works.

Also if you put it all into a single typescript file you can technically compile that typescript file to then share as a standard package with non-deno code.

Needless to say, this needs a better approach...

[alshdavid]

This is a problem with Deno's module resolution algorithm. Please upvote this issue for more priority by the Deno team.

denoland/deno#18546

[alita-moore]

Update: you are now able to include local paths via an import map, you can put the path to a package's dist/index.js to achieve the same effect as including it as a normal workspace package: supabase/cli#1584 (comment)

[eb-so]

Deno is the worst, I was battling with it for 3 days now to implement a simple watermarking image functionality

[KnightOfNih]

Trying to implement some simple rabbitmq workflows, battling with Deno for hours, and wondered, "Who the hell thought this was a good idea?!".

It's time to support Node natively without jumping through compatibility hoops. Make it the default runtime and move on with your lives. You're lost in the sunk-cost fallacy.

[christophemenager]

I had a terrible developer experience battling with nodeJS vs Deno compatibility in a monorepo concept.

My use case was quite simple:

• I am forced to use Deno when writting the Edge functions
• Edge functions are not made to run long-running tasks so I am using a call to a NodeJS server to run some background tasks
• Sharing code between edge functions and my nodeJS server was a nightmare...

Even tools for this use case (mentioned in the supabase docs) like trigger.dev are very hard/impossible to integrate into a deno environment.

I am not even mentioning the numerous times I needed to restart my vscode because it got lost switching from NodeJS to Deno (and type linter is broken)

Can you please reconsider this choice? 🙏

[jdgamble555]

Why Supabase probably chose Deno

• To everyone on this thread who doesn't understand hosting basics...

The only cost effective alternative for Supabase would probably be AWS Serverless (for NodeJS), which is what Vercel and Netlify use, similar to Cloud Run which is what Google uses. They all require Cold Starts, which are inacceptable for many users. No Serverless is going to support long-running tasks. Period (and unfortunately). The only alternative for this is to host the long-running task on Heroku or Digital Ocean i.e. However, then you usually don't get the Serverless CDN, so it will be slower for lots of users depending on their location.

The alternative is to use Edge Functions on an Edge Network. Netlify uses Deno on the Edge while Vercel uses Cloudflare (Workers) on the Edge (Cloudflare). These support longer running tasks (limited to web-sockets) with no cold starts, but the import module compatibility is worse. Deno is much better than Cloudflare Workers by far for compatibility (however also by far a bigger pain in the butt to use).

I have not seen any Edge networks with Bun, but I suspect Bun would be even more compatible than Deno, but not support everything. I have not seen Bun hosted anywhere on the Edge, but that would be interesting.

I prefer Edge over Serverless Cold Starts any day, and Deno on the Edge is going to be the current best bet for this. You lose the CDN if you lose Node Serverless unless there is some costly custom alternative.

As I said above, all SSR Frameworks (except Angular currently) can use Serverless or Edge functions with the Framework (Cloud Run, Vercel, Netlify, Amazon) when deployed. If you hate Deno, host your app using Serverless somewhere, or host on a custom server network.

---

I would like to see Bun hosted on an Edge Network somewhere, but I suspect it will have its own problems for Node users as well.

There are always tradeoffs.

J

[williamlmao]

@jdgamble555 We recently switched from supabase edge functions to use Vercel node functions after using supabase edge functions for about a year. Yeah, there is a cold start still but vercel has done so much optimization there it actually turns out our functions are much faster overall after making the switch. I never got to the bottom of it, but we actually saw quite a bit of latency with supabase edge functions. On top of that, we just experienced so many issues with supabase edge functions. We'd get some random errors that appeared to be cloudflare related which went away completely after we switched.

After using vercel functions (node), it really feels like there isn't even much of a tradeoff to consider. It's just better in every way. Faster, code sharing, less random errors. I really hope supabase decides to go in that direction.

[jdgamble555]

They may be faster after the first run, but not when there is a cold start on the first run. When they are warmed up (you get regular hits), there are no cold starts. I'm not sure what you mean "Cloudflare-related." Vercel Serverless is AWS Lambdas, while Vercel Edge is Cloudflare Workers. Deno is way more powerful than Cloudflare Workers, just a bigger pain.

[naclcaleb]

I get all of this, but I disagree with the decision - developers have been using regular serverless functions for quite some time now and while of course it has tradeoffs in terms of latency, they're very usable and generally the latency can be worked around. Not all of us need for our apps to be instantly available, and cold starts aren't too bad if you're getting consistent traffic.

Supabase as a business is primarily marketed toward developers - who, broadly speaking, are used to Node in serverless environments. So the decision to use Deno is in my opinion misaligned with the overall marketing of the platform. In almost every other aspect of the product, DX is prioritized with fantastic results, but not with edge functions.

I love Supabase, and continue to use and recommend it! But I don't think I'm ever going to use their edge functions again for anything serious :)

[jdgamble555]

@naclcaleb - Well Vercel uses both for example. @naclcaleb - I'm curious, what is your use case where you need Supabsae Functions but you can't just your app endpoints? Are you building a phone app?

[naclcaleb]

Indeed, I have no problem with offering both traditional serverless and edge functions - I think that's certainly ideal. Supabase does not do this currently though.

Confused what you're asking - "can't just your app endpoints?"
By that do you mean cases where I can't just use an API endpoint? Or something?

I do primarily work with mobile apps, or ones with both web and mobile versions.

For a lot of things I do with supabase, Postgres database functions are just fine. When things get more complex though, I do prefer to use JS functions, in which case I tend to lean toward Netlify's functions platform since I am often using them to host static files as well.

[carlosbfuzzy]

2 years later and still using this garbage it's actually crazy

[aaronksaunders]

this is extremely painful... i have audio file conversions i am trying to run using ffmpeg that work fine in node, yet I am burining through hours trying to make this work in Deno... poor decision not providing better options here

[alshdavid]

I'm with you, the fault here lies with Nodejs as they don't have any good bindings to embed Nodejs making it impractical to use. I encourage you to add your thoughts in this issue

Bun also cannot be embedded so the only embeddable JavaScript runtime with support for the Nodejs standard library is Deno.

[ecancil]

I have to say, after wasting days and days and days and days and days on Deno, I agree with the sentiment of most people in this app. Doubling down on this half baked technology is a piss poor decision

[alshdavid]

It's worth raising this with the Nodejs team - they don't provide a good API for embedding Nodejs into projects. So far, Deno is the only project that offers a half decent API for integrating with

[matart15]

I am not very familiar with js runtimes. I saw this node api is bad answer on few places. My question is how others are doing it with node?

ex: many people mentioned they are changing to Netlify function because they support node

[alshdavid]

My question is how others are doing it with node?

It's not impossible, typically those projects have more resources and take a little more liberty with the mental health of their engineers 😆

You can look at the sources for the node.js command line, find what methods the cli calls and wrap that in something programmatic (e.g. convert node index.js to Nodejs::run("./node.js") or something), but between the dependencies and the heavily glued together code, it's very challenging to pull apart.

Deno offers a programmatic api where you can simply add nodejs compatibility to your runtime as basically a middleware (think: Deno.runtime().use(deno.core).use(deno.nodejs).run('index.js').

Obviously the issue with Deno is their nodejs compatibility isn't perfect - and that's why we are here.

[alshdavid]

This is another potential option: llrt with perhaps a custom resolver like oxc

[coryetzkorn]

I wish I could use Supabase for everything, but alas I will be spinning up serverless Node functions on Vercel. DX is more important than cold starts here.

[matart15]

Supabase advertises as Firebase replacement. As far as i expiernced compared to firebase

Good

• open source
• self hostable ( mostly db is not vendor locked )
• relational database ( debatable )

Bad

• Authentication on postgre ( not very bad but still not good either )
• server functions are Deno only ( DX sucks )
• no Hosting
• migration ( not like Firebase had good solution. but still hard )

We can live with no Hosting. migration is hard problem is not supabase only problem. But Deno only is supabase specific problem.

[coryetzkorn]

Deno has definitely grown on me over the past 2 weeks, but I would still prefer not to learn a new runtime :)

[Pushplaybang]

Deno is amazing.Hadn't had a reason to start using it, and the DX after leaving node years ago for golang, is great.

[alita-moore]

when using it as a framework for serverless functions I think it's fantastic, albeit with a lot of work needed to improve the DX (e.g. monorepo workspace packages support)

[beardsleym]

Glad i found this thread, spent 2 days trying to write a function to send a push notification. Every step of the way was something new; no types, couldn't import shared code, working out what jsr: npm: node: meant and finally environment variables, it's all a mess and not working, so I gave up to run on Node somewhere else. Really wish they had Node functions, I'm happy to choose a region to deploy them in, as an option.

[matart15]

I am using deno 2.
Deno 2 have a lot of wierd behaviours. Ex:

if i import external file via import_map.json, I have to write all other files that file is referencing in import_map.json. which does not support folders. Currenty my function only uses 3 external files, So I am somehow managing it. But imagine using 100 files. Very annoying.

sometimes edge function does not reflect changes at all. Which makes debugging very confusing and make us lose al lot of time ( specially stress developers ). For now We are stop and restarting the edge function every time make changes to edge function. very annoying

Please acknowledge deno was bad choice and support node ( prefferably both )

Again have a look at this.
https://github.com/orgs/supabase/discussions/7742#discussioncomment-8498556

@awalias ( let me mention you because I recieve a lot of marketing emails titled by you )